7.28.2014

I'm still behind in my reading, but here are the next ten titles I've finished this year. I sought out more writers of color and allowed myself time to read longer, denser works like Invisible Man, Americanah and A Tale for the Time Being. If you missed my first ten titles you can read about them here.

11. Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Halpern Wayland This novel in verse about a young girl coming of age verse is a little
slight for me. Isn’t as inspiring as I find some novels in verse to be
(Sonya Sones).

12. Educating Esme by Esme Codell This memoir of a woman’s
first year teaching brought some inspiration, but like most education
memoirs, they establish the teacher as an educational savior, the only
shining light in a dark system, which is such a simplistic way of looking
at this practice. Kind of inspiring, but mostly annoying.

13. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison An exhausting, devastating
account of a young Black man finding his place in a shifting post civil
war, pre-civil rights America. From the battle royal at the opening,
through college and the mental hospital, to the northern city where labor
and political organizing provide opportunities and
devastation, the narrator plods on until we no longer see him.

14. Divergent by Veronica Roth I saw the preview for movie based on this book when I
went to see The Book Thief and was
intrigued. Then all of my students started reading it and insisted I join
them. Dystopian YA is fun and it made me wish I’d finished my NaNoWriMo
project from a few years back.

15. Marbles by Ellen Forney A friend lent this to me to help me along my 50
book mission and I read it as the Trail Blazers were getting worked in the
playoffs. It allowed me to trace through my sister’s journey to a bi-polar diagonsis. The connections between creativity,
artistry, and mood disorders hit home with me as did the graphic
novel-ness of it which captures in visuals a complex and inexplicable
experience.

16. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie This one took me
a while, not because it wasn’t engaging, but Adichie’s other book took me
about six months to finish, so taking a month for this one isn’t all that
bad. I loved the conversations about race and the contemporary feel
including the blogs and the way Obama’s candidacy and election did
something unique for communities of color. Her modern Nigeria feels so
distant from the one I read about in Half of a Yellow Sun and Adichie captures
the feeling of belonging and not belonging that immigrants and Americans
of color experience.

17. My Ideal Bookshelf edited by Thessaly La Force, art by Jane
Mount Really This is more of a coffee table book, a conversation piece,
and it’s beautiful but it also has its limits. I kind of hate the
pretention of lists like this and James Franco’s list exhibits this
perfectly: these are the books that are acceptable as my favorites. So, I found
connection with some of the lists and annoyance with others and plan to
put together a list of my own every year to show how my tastes and pov
change over time.

18. The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward I read this on board my
flight to Portland as the complications with Mom’s surgery piled up. These
stories of young men in Mississippi who find death too young brought me
comfort during a time of intense uncertainty. Ward’s ability to capture
place and character leave me in awe. She does fiction (Salvage the Bones) and nonfiction equally
well.

19. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki Loved this book which
alternated povs between the diary of a Japanese girl who spent a good deal
of time in the US, and a third person close of Ruth. She masterfully
unfolds the journeys of both characters and works in all kinds of science
and philosophy. It actually made me want to meditate, and study Japanese
again. 20. The Accidental Asian by Eric Liu I enjoyed the first two essays in
these Notes from a Native Speaker, and maybe if I was Nissei, second
generation, I would have related more, or if I was a guy. His perspective is
definitely one of male power (as a speech writer for Clinton he definitely
occupies influential spaces) but by his last few essays on New Jews and Blood
Ties I’d grown weary of his perspective and found fault in some of his
strategies.I'm almost halfway to 50 and hope to have my next ten titles up at the start of September.

Progress: Still drafting the high school memoir: 37,500 words. I'm using July as a Camp NaNoWriMo to get this done. Then I'll I need to finish drafting Rice Paper Superheroes.

Reading: Read and write short annotations for 50 books in the year.

Progress: I'm still behind. I have 19 finished and a bunch of these were long, non-YA titles so I'm ok with being a little behind. Americanah and A Tale for the Time Being were worth the extra weeks I took to read them. I still have a solid month of summer to catch up. That means 10 books this month which is ambitious, but doable.

Publishing: Submit work at least once a month and publish one blog post per week.

Progress: I suck at submitting. I don't know what I need to do to get going on this. Any suggestions? As for blog posts this is number 19 so I'm just a little behind.

Fitness: Run 500 miles in the year.

Progress: Yes! I'm ahead on this one. Granted, I'm walking most of these, but still I'm getting the miles in with 261 miles through June.

All of the goals are still within reach. Just have to keep putting in work!